1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computing devices and more particularly to components of such computing devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless or wired networks. The wireless and/or wire lined communication devices may be personal computers, laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDA), cellular telephones, personal digital video players, personal digital audio players, global positioning system (GPS) receivers, video game consoles, entertainment devices, etc.
Many of the communication devices include a similar basic architecture: that being a processing core, memory, and peripheral devices. In general, the memory stores operating instructions that the processing core uses to generate data, which may also be stored in the memory. The peripheral devices allow a user of the communication device to direct the processing core as to which operating instructions to execute, to enter data, etc. and to see the resulting data. For example, a personal computer includes a keyboard, a mouse, and a display, which a user uses to cause the processing core to execute one or more of a plurality of applications.
As integrated circuit technology advances, the basic architecture of a processing core, memory, and peripheral devices is increasing in complexity, capabilities, and size reduction. However, communication between these components is done using traces (e.g., on an IC and/or on a PCB), which requires drivers to drive the lines. As is known, the transferring of data via the traces and drivers consumes a significant amount of power, which produces heat. With many central processing unit (CPU) architectures, heat dissipation is a critical issue.
Therefore, a need exists for a computing device IC architecture that reduces power consumption by reducing interconnecting traces and associated driver circuitry.